How to reset trackpad settings of a Macbook Pro

Question

In a Macbook Pro laptop, how do I reset the trackpad to the "default" status? (like default tracking speed, scrolling speed, preferences etc.)

Answer 1

There are two methods:

Default settings

These are the default settings on my Macbook Pro (early 2011), note that for example "Tap to Click" and the "Secondary Click" are deactivated by default.

Resetting tracking speed

Go to the Terminal.app and enter:

defaults delete .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scaling
defaults delete .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scrolling

There might be some additional settings, like the double-click speed, but those are not saved in this file, so I can't really say where you would edit them, if not through System Preferences.

Doing this automatically

Go to the Terminal.app and enter:

touch reset.sh
chmod +x reset.sh
open reset.sh

Then paste the following into the file:

#!/bin/bash
defaults delete .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scaling
defaults delete .GlobalPreferences com.apple.trackpad.scrolling

Save it and close the file. Now you can run the script using

./reset.sh